I know I am blogging after a long time. Since the last blog I have moved cities (I have shifted to Mumbai). Those who do not know the Marathi language might be wondering what the title of this blog means. 'Anthrun pahun paai pasarave' is a Marathi idiom which means that one should spend within his/her means or one should live within their means. I believe this idiom is losing its relevance in modern India/urban India. This 'thought blog' is about my thoughts about why its relevance is lost.
I recalled this idiom when I encountered a workshop being conducted on parenting. The objective of this workshop was to help parents deal with issues of children. I can understand how some new issues which arise due to technology might need to be addressed and how parents might need to understand the magnitude of technology's impact and how to be on top of things, but parenting should not be a thing that needs to taught if one is reflective enough. If one has thought about how one was raised it should give enough head start on your parenting journey. There might arise a lot of questions here about the statements that I just made. What if I need to find a better way to raise my child? (this assumes that you have carefully evaluated your own up bringing). What if my parent was abusive and I want to know the proper way of raising a child? These questions, too, are justified for bringing forward the urge to attend a parenting workshop. I still believe one can make a reasonable judgement about ones parenting philosophy from just being reflective about how one was brought up.
But how does all of this link to 'spend within ones means' and loss of relevance in modern India. To answer this one has to look to question(s) that might arise due to economic reasons. Imagine a scenario - a fairly common one in urban India - where both parents are working. Neither parent has enough time to pay attention to their child as much as one of their own parents did. I say this assuming that one parent - in most scenarios their mother - was not working full time and was fully dedicated to welfare of the child. A common characteristic of this parent was to dote on every aspect of the child. These aspects included every aspect of their nutrition - when they ate, how much they ate and importantly what they ate - who they made friends with, how much time they spent on studies and outdoor activities and many more. As both parents work now-a-days, this level of attention to the child is not possible, though, I must say that technology is helping a lot. But, technology is a double edged sword and is a matter of a whole other discussion.
The question arises of how have we reached this state of family dynamics. I think the answer is simple. It is economic precedent of 'more income leads to more development and higher standard of living'. The general assumption in economics being everybody view for higher standard of living. Is there an end to development? Can we freeze and accept a particular standard of living. Nothing in Economics, as far as I know speaks about curtailing. It is always about expansion. It is expansion of labour force which led to policies incentivising more people to seek work and encouraging both parents to work. Any policy made impacts more aspects than the one it intended to resolve. In this case one of the things that it has impacted is the parenting capabilities of an urban parent. At this point I must admit a couple of things. Firstly, I am not aware how many families in the rural areas have both parents working full time in which case a similar dynamic could be observed there too. Secondly, these kinds of policies have played the largest part at contributing to this change. There are many other changes that have happened as a consequence of changes in culture, technology, etc which were essential to the occurrence of this state of parenting. I think it is time for all stakeholders to step back and evaluate how much of 'expansion' is really necessary not only to make parenting more natural and intrinsic but also to evaluate which other areas of human life it has impacted. I suggest looking at 'Anthrun pahun paai pasarave' might not be a bad start. I must also say that I have seen many parents who are doing an excellent job despite the hardships they face as a consequence of the environment created by these policies and there are many more angles to view the parenting problems than the ones laid down above.
